


Of Melancholy and Monotremes

by Outis_of_the_Cave



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: (and not just of geography), (or would it be the opposite????), Comfort/Angst, Dirty Talk, Dramedy, Dry Humping, Explicit Language, Exploration, F/M, Forbidden Love, M/M, Nautical Vocabulary, Platypuses, Swimming, The Royal Navy, Unrequited Love, Victorian Attitudes, thomas hobbes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 02:17:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15184565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Outis_of_the_Cave/pseuds/Outis_of_the_Cave
Summary: Trapped in the frozen grip of an inhospitable landscape; Captain Francis Moira Rawdon Crozier tells his steward a story that will change their lives forever. They might not have discovered the Northwest Passage, but tonight they will discover something more profound...





	1. Chapter 1

Captain’s steward Thomas Jopson wipes his brow and closes eyes, but even here, in the small cabin where Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier lays supine on his cot, he cannot ignore the hostile world that is trying force its way in. 

 

 _This place wants us dead…_ The ice scrapes against the hull, sending a low shrilling noise undercutting the louder groan of the _Terror’s_ beams being squeezed under the pressure of a frozen and pitiless hand. Thomas Jopson, so used to working in officer’s country and possessing the privilege of sleeping in his own cubicle, is naturally privy to things-and what he knows torments him. Last night, or maybe it was lost night… _What does night mean in a winter of eternal darkness?..._ He had overhead Ice Master Blanky reporting to Crozier that the ice was squeezing them, and that there was a chance that their ship, their haven and fortress, would crack like an egg. The crew, so soft and vulnerable, would be spilled out onto the ice and left to the mercy of the everpresent cold, the wind and _the_ _creature_.        

 

Jopson turns when he hears a new noise joining the winter chorus of odd squeaks and moans-that of his captain moaning. Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier (in case you forgot his awesome full name) is looks much like one of the chilled corpses down in the hold’s dead room. His ashen face is locked in a tight grimace and one pale hand, his fingers looking nearly translucent, clutches at his blanket in a claw like vice. The captain of  Her Majesty’s Ship  _ Terror  _ and now expedition leader is tossing and turning as his whiskey deprived body turns on him.

 

“Jopson…” he rasps. 

 

“I got you,” Jopson is now wiping Crozier’s brow and, once he puts his handkerchief down, he cradles his captain’s head in one of his arms and tries to get him to drink some water. Crozier’s lips are as white as his face and this causes a pang in Jopson’s heart. Crozier was not only an experience manner with decades of experience behind him, but an arctic veteran. If anyone could get them out of this mess, it was him. 

 

And yet this wasn’t Jopson’s sole reason for concern. Far from it actually. 

 

Many found Crozier to be a hard man to like. The captain of the  _ Terror  _ found large events-especially ones that were meant to be reassuring like the former Sir John’s Divine Service-to be painful affairs. Crozier did not tell stories about himself like Commander Fitzjames and, around others; his emotional range lay between somewhat drunk and belligerent to gloomy, Thomas Hobbes quoting, existential despair. For these reasons, many people wrongly assumed Francis Crozier to be a bore. 

 

_ But that is not true _ , Jopson tells himself as he carefully brushes the alcohol deprived man grey hair that still has shocks of red in it,  _ not true at all _ . In all his time spent with him, Jopson had not only been steward too, but been friends with one of the finest officers he had ever met. Beneath his introversion and melancholy lay a man of great warmth, responsibility and determination. Jopson knew that Crozier loved his crew; not in the overly indulgent way Sir John had but in the way that a stern and distant father, despite his coolness, looked after his children. Crozier never asked his men to do what he himself wouldn’t do, and whenever  _ the thing _ snatched one of them away the good captain tried his damndest to find the poor soul that everyone knew had surely died. Jopson had seen how Crozier bared his soul when he surrounded himself in company he was comfortable with, and he saw it now in his captain’s feeble state. 

 

_ The withdrawls cannot stop him _ , Jopson reassures himself,  _ he can fight this and he will be back to lead us. _ Now the steward wishes more than ever that he could somehow break through his captain’s shell and let him know that he was not alone and that there was no need for this wretched melancholy that held him like a vice. 

 

“Jopson…” Crozier rasps again and is eyes are now half opened, “your still there?”

 

“I wouldn’t dream of being anywhere else, sir,” Jopson squeezes his captain’s hand reassuringly. 

 

“I hope I haven’t troubling you… to much… I understand this is-isn’t normally part of a...a… steward’s duties.” 

 

“Think nothing of it, sir.” Jopson face flushes in embarrassment. It didn’t take a genius to see that their relationship had gone from something professional to intimate-indeed, Jopson had been changing his captain, washing him and getting him to eat and drink-the softness between them could not be ignored and that scared the steward for reasons that defied explanation. “It’s no problem for me,” Jopson tries to put some levity in the situation, “I’d rather be in here than out there, sir.” 

 

Crozier laughs, or at least that’s what the grating noise emanating from the back of his throat seems to be. “Many might… disagree with you, Mr. Jopson.”

 

“You should get some rest, sir,” Jopson says softly. 

 

“I am resting,” Crozier retorts and there is still a trace of his usual commanding tone in his weakened voice, faded but still present. “I imagine your...yer…. Bored out of your mind, how ‘bout I spin ya…ah...a yarn?”

 

Jopson knew that the proper thing to do was to deflect his captain’s offer and go on nursing him back to health, or atleast making his life just a bit more comfortable, but he can’t help but let his curiosity get the best of him. The man he tended seldom opened up about past but when he did the story never failed to be a fascinating one. Jopson fondly remembers his captain telling him how, in 1814, he arrived at Pitcairn Island on board the HMS  _ Briton  _ and met the descendants of the mutineers who had left their Captain Bligh adrift in the Pacific before commandeering the Majesty’s  _ Bounty _ and returning to the golden shores of Tahiti. 

Jopson now doubts that Crozier would want to tell that story again in light of recent events. 

 

Still, Crozier surely had a different story in mind. Perhaps one about patrolling the Bay of Biscay or maybe a story telling of the rolling green fields of his native Ireland... So much possibility! “I would love to hear a story, sir,” Jopson says and props Crozier’s head up on his pillow.  

 

“Good, and once I’m done I’ll… Quit botherin ye’. 

 

“Don’t worry, sir. There’s no place I’d rather be,” Jopson insists and blushes at his own candidness. Stewards hovered in the background and poured the drinks at dinner, looked after the chinaware and sewed up uniforms, they did not bare themselves like this.. Fortunately, Crozier either pretended not to notice or was still too unwell to see his steward’s flushed face. “Tell me about the uh… south and all the lands there...sir.”     

 

“There’s no white bears down that aways,” begins Crozier in a thick accent, “only the strangest creatures a man could dream of. Penguins, little flightless birds waddling around like admiralty clerks in dark frock coats… Seals but not like the little ones up here… No… These were big ones with big trunks like the elephants in India that were huffin and puffin and snorin...like the men swaying in there hammocks... So many birds that only a man like Goodsir could memorize ‘em all…” Crozier pauses and is very silent. Wooden beams creak.  

 

Jopson wonders if his captain is asleep but, without warning, his captain props himself up on one elbow and grabs Jopson’s wrist with his free hand. “But,” Crozier’s voice somehow regains some of it’s old strength and is filled with concern, “there was one creature, aye, one beast that stood apart from the rest.”

 

Jopson leans closer, eyes wide with curiosity. “A  _ dangerous _ beast?”

 

“Aye… Worst than any white bear. I faced it in Van Diemen’s Land.”

 

“Was it,” Jopson’s voice is hardly even a whisper-never before has he spoken to his captain so softly-he leans in closer, “a devil?”   

 

Crozier’s gaze matches his steward’s now. The older man’s eyes are a very pale blue, nearly grey. “Worse. More vile than any banshee haunting a moonlight bathed glade or devil dog loping round the moors.” 

 

“What… What manner of monster was this?”

 

Candlelight dully reflects off of Crozier’s bloodshot eyes. The grip on the steward’s wrist grows tighter. 

 

“ _ A platypus, Thomas. _ ”


	2. Chapter 2

Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier’s trip to the Southern Continent left the grizzled captain with a sense of conflict-both fulfilled and yet, only half satisfied. That the expedition was a success lay beyond question-together with the dashing Captain James Ross-who was in charge because of course he was-many discoveries were made and much of the coast mapped out. Better yet, Crozier did not lose a single man under his command, not a small feat in the Discovery Service. They were all homeward bound and-with the exception of the poor boatswain who got swept overboard on the  _ Erebus _ -both  _ Erebus  _ and  _ Terror  _ would be back in England, safe and sound. 

 

But Francis Crozier didn’t give a flying fuck about England. 

 

He wouldn’t bother to piss on all those stiff, crusty admirals who never recognized the achievements of a certain middle aged arctic veteran with an awesome name; or it’s miserly frock coated clerks always eager to put a landed officer on halfpay; or it’s frivolous fops in their tight, riding breeches; even if they were on fire.              

 

For most of his life, he reserved his affection for close friends like James Ross and Thomas Blanky, both men he had worked with around the northern pole on the other end of  the world. 

 

In such desolate lands, frozen in for entire winters and being a mere frigid breath away from a slow death, a mate either grew to hate the man closest to him or to love him. And Crozier, beneath all his cold weather slops and cool demeanor that could turn volatile at a moments notice, was something of a softy.    

 

Now though, now there was a woman in his life, a certain Sophia Cracroft. 

 

In the days leading up to his arrival at Hobart Town-Crozier spent many an hour alone in his cabin, imagining her easy smile, ardent spirit and sharp wit that never failed to make him laugh. This was no mere infatuation that only lasted throughout the shore leaves of his midshipman days, oh no, this was love! A wholesome love; composed of long walks in scenic, moonlit gardens, his and her hands-his and her hearts-intertwined and creating a warmth strong enough to melt the thickest pack ice.  

On the other hand-Crozier was the eleventh of thirteen children, and if his parents could manage that, well, then he saw no reason why he and Sophia couldn’t try. 

 

The atmosphere at Sir John Franklin’s residence was much more somber than it had been when Crozier first arrived on the way down south, but it failed to sadden him. Sophia Cracroft was with him, blond hair shining and fair face beaming at him, Sophia Cracroft was with him and holding his hand, welcoming him back from a long journey.  _ So this is what it’s like _ , Crozier kept thinking to himself,  _ So this is what it’s like _ . During their long nocturnal walks, when their only company were the servants who were considerate enough to maintain a respectful distance, they usually never spoke a word to each other-for they had long since transcended the need for those things.   

 

But he couldn’t bare his heart to her. Sir John and Lady Jane were always hosting dinners (Crozier always attended but more for Lady Jane’s sake than the good natured but long winded Sir John) and then there was James Ross always wanting to share drinks. Crozier and Sophia were only able to meet in the gardens where servants might overhear the question…that small question that so much rested upon. 

 

“I wish,” Crozier said during one of their evening walks, “that we could just leave this place.” 

“We?” Sophia murmured to him and smiled.  _ Smiled! _

“Aye,” replied Crozier and looked down, smiling to himself. 

 

“You wouldn’t take me to the frozen north, would you, Francis?”

 

“Good heavens, no! Only the best for you. Someplace warm, pretty like this place, but more…”

 

“Adventurous?” Sophia swerved around so that she stood in front of him, her smile widened and she clasped both his hands. 

 

_ She’s like a witch _ , he silently marveled how the moonlight made her lips so pale and her teeth so bright,  _ I, a traveller lost in a dark, windswept glade who has found...no...she has found me. _

 

“Y...aye...erm...ye...yeah,” Crozier said in his most eloquent voice. “Um.”  

 

“Hush, Francis,” Sophia whispered to him and held a finger close to his lips. “I know just the place.”  

 

“That’s… Really convenient!” Crozier managed.

 

“It is, but…”

 

“But what, Miss Cracroft?”

 

“Why, to be careful what you wish for, Francis.” 

 

She released his hands and vanished amongst the flowers before he could speak another word. 

 

\---

 

They set out under a grey dawn and took a path winding through rich green jungle. They made small talk and Crozier couldn’t help but be amazed by how Sophia, this golden lady, could make an activity so tedious so enjoyable.  _ She could strike me with a cat o’ nine tails and I’d enjoy it _ , he thought and laughed. 

 

“My goodness, did the gloomy Captain Crozier, just laugh?”she was smiling at him.

 

Crozier surprised himself by carelessly shrugging and laughing some more. “I suppose so. Consider yourself fortunate, you just witnessed one of nature's most peculiar events.” 

 

“Is that so?” she asked very softly. “Then perhaps we shall witness another one.” 

 

“Eh...I mean, excuse me?”

 

“Don’t stare with your mouth open, Francis, it does not become you,” she held up her hand and giggled before continuing, “you have been in this corner of the world for awhile, haven’t you? So what is your opinion of the platypus?”

 

In Crozier’s own humble opinion, platypuses were the odd looking bastard offspring of weasels and seals, but there was no way he could tell the prim and proper Miss Cracroft that. “I had no idea they lived here.” 

 

“But they do Francis, they make little burrows on the pondside. A matter of fact, where we’re going there is so many of the burrows that they call it the platypus pond. If we’re lucky, we may see one.”

 

Crozier did not think so. He remembered how when he first wintered in the arctic he saw how the Esquimaux hunted the elusive seals-digging holes into the ice and patiently waiting for a slippery creature to poke it’s head out. To him, it was an exercise in frustration. More often than not a seal would never show up and if one did and was caught-it was very likely that it’s slick, wet corpse would slide out the hunter’s hands and back into the water. Crozier did not know much about monotremes, but if they were anything like seals then it was very unlikely one would surface in this pond. “If we’re lucky,” he echoed.  

 

The pond in question was a small body of water with a small beach on the near side and dense undergrowth on the far one. 

 

“You see those branches hanging over the water,” Sophia pointed to where a clump of trees were practically sliding into the water, their roots partially submerged in the still water, “that’s where the burrows are.” 

 

Even while squinting, Crozier could not see anything. The shadows from the overhanging branches completely obscured his view so that even if a furry creature did show up, it was unlikely he’d notice. But that did not matter, all that mattered was that he was here with her. Platypus or no platypus. 

 

They spread out a fresh blanket from Lady Franklin’s own linen closet and enjoyed a meal of fresh fruit, sandwiches, cheese, pastries and wine. They chattered some more, laughed and Crozier jokingly asked her if a platypus were an edible creature. It was an odd question, and he couldn’t decide whether he asked it because of the wine or because he was unused to the happiness he felt. Maybe both.          

 

“I don’t think so,” Sophia said very seriously, “their poisonous.”

 

“Your joking.”

 

“No, I’m not, the males have barbs that are known to cause much pain.” 

 

They laid back on the grass and watched the sunlight sparkling on the water. The tropical heat-so different from the freezing, damp cold of Antarctica- and the wine made his mind feel heavy. He closed his eyes, yawned, and he felt his mind drifting off, as light as a feather and unburdened by his usual melancholy. He was distantly aware of Sophia talking about how it was mating season or some inane trivia but for once, her words did not hold his undivided attention. 

 

He yawned again and fell into a dreamless sleep. 

It was the last time he would rest soundly in Van Diemen’s Land. 

 

\---

Crozier woke with a start. Gasping for breath he looked round and saw that Sophia no longer laid next to him.  _ How long was I out? _ Crozier grunted and rose to his feet, the wisps of the nightmare already fading from memory, and checked his pocket watch. Only half an hour passed, thank God if he really was there in Hobart Town, but where was Sophia?

 

Crozier cursed himself for his carelessness and almost wished that a bosun’s mate had been around to whack him awake. He had dozed off like some lazy cabin boy and, worst of all, fallen asleep before he could pose her the question! And now she was gone and he began fearing the worst. What if some fugitive penal convict abducted her? Crozier shuddered at the possibility, he couldn’t live with himself if Sophia suffered just a small scratch on his watch. 

 

“Miss Cracroft?” Crozier called. “Sophia?”

 

She answered, or more accurately, her clothes did. He found them draped across a wall of shrubbery as if by a casual hand and he could only stare at them, dumbfounded.  _ Do english women do this? _ Crozier knew all about men. Ever since a lad of thirteen he had spent his life talking, eating, sleeping, joking, rejoicing, suffering fooling and experimenting with them in the cramped quarters of the Britannic Majesty’s ships. But when it came to women, especially with english women, Crozier’s knowledge left much to be desired. Not to mention that those women he was intimate with weren’t exactly upstanding members of society or even a part of English society in the first place.  

 

It was damnably hot now. The sun had reached its zenith and its heat beat down upon him. Crozier swore...and then grinned to himself in relief.  _ The answer is so obvious _ , he reflected,  _ she went for a swim to cool off _ . Crozier shook his head and began walking back to the picnic blanket. He had been so worried over nothing and… He paused midstride, his mouth hung open. 

 

First: Sophia Cracroft was naked and in his immediate vicinity.

 

Second: She was alone in a body of water and he wasn’t sure she knew how to swim. 

 

Third: Sophia fucking Cracroft was fucking skinny dipping nearby Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Fucking Crozier. 

 

“Oh my…” Crozier gasped. “Oh no!” 

 

Sophia was alone in the pond, unchaperoned and vulnerable! And then there was the matter of her knowing how to swim or not! One of the peculiarities of the Royal Navy was that the majority of it’s seamen-men who quite literally lived on the high seas-did not know how to swim. Crozier had long since lost count of how many times he had been forced to leap overboard in order to save an experienced mariner who-while silent and grim faced on deck-was reduced to flailing and screaming in the deep blue sea. Now it was not a maritime professional but a helpless gentlewoman in the water and for all he knew she might have been stung by a deranged platypus!

 

“Sophia, dear! I’m coming!” he cried and started tearing off his clothes. She’d be in an improper state of dress, and so would he, but there was no way around it. When the time came for the rescue he’d have to just close his eyes and think of Ireland while he carried her off to safety. “Hold on! Crozy baby is coming!” 

 

Struggling to get his boots off, Crozier half stumbled, half hopped to the pond and threw himself in. “Sophia!” he sputtered, rising out of the water, “S-sophia!” He splashed about, driving himself deeper into the pond. Crozier was a rather stocky man, his not body not exactly suited for swimming, but his desperation drove him on. 

 

He did not see her anywhere. But where else could she be? Surely she didn’t wander back to the Governor’s House in a state of undress? Crozier’s stopped his splashing and surveyed his surroundings. The far end of the pond where the branches bathed everything in it’s shade, yes, that would be the perfect place for her to swim and cool off.  _ You see, everything is going to be alright _ . Crozier quickly swam underneath the branches where the shadows engulfed him. 

 

Crozier felt like he was a child again, hiding in some shrubbery from his sisters. The branches just a hand’s span away from the top of his head blocked out most of the sunlight and branches creeping into the water surrounded him. If anyone on the shore, they’d be unable to see him and it this knowledge delighted Crozier. He had always been fond of hidden places, of sneaking around at night and riding other people’s cows...Now he found himself here, but this time he wasn’t alone. 

 

A splash. He sensed movement in the gloom in front of him. 

 

He tensed. It had to be Sophia; just her and him alone in this shaded, watery alcove.  _ It’s happening, ol’ Crozy, it’s really happening _ . Was this the real reason for her swim? Had she known-she was always so clever-that if she hid in the lake he would inevitably come to her rescue? So she could confront him...here...She did talk about it being mating season after all, that couldn’t of been a coincidence now, could it?

 

Without thinking and not really knowing what to expect, Crozier closed his eyes and allowed himself to tread in the dark, cool water. He reached out a hand and grabbed one of the branches to steady himself. “Sophia” he whispered and surrendered himself to the moment. 

 

A light splash sent small waves beating against his chest. Crozier termbled in anticipation. He still had no idea what lay in store for him and that made the suspense all the greater. Sophia had lured him here and he was certain she didn’t have watercolors or climbing exercises in mind. He felt the water parting and an alien warmth brush against him. His grip tightened on the branch. 

She kissed him, her lips feeling curiously large against his own. Crozier enthusiastically returned it and let out a contented moan. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that a kiss from Sophia could be so sensual-her slippery lips were all over him-at one moment nuzzling his underlip and then sliding all over his chin the next. He tried to wrap his free arm around her slender waist only to be astonished by a startling nothingness. Is her waist that slender? He awkwardly rested his hand on her surprisingly small back. 

 

_ Are englishwomen supposed to be so...hairy? _

 

Those slippery lips-once so welcoming- took on a new, horrific dimension. 

 

They were sliding all over his face now as if Sophia literally wanted to suck his face. All of his instincts screamed at him to open his eyes or to at least push this thing away, but what if it were Sophia? He didn’t want to hurt her feelings by rejecting her... “Erf...Soffia?” the sound of muffled voice would have been funny if it wasn’t for the fact that his lips were now pressed against... in congress with…

 

_ If any person in the fleet shall commit the unnatural and detestable sin of buggery and sodomy with a beast, he shall be punished with death by the sentence of a court martial. _

 

Life is nasty, brutish and short, but what Thomas Hobbes forgot to say was how ridiculous it all was. Crozier forced his eyes open. 

 

And looked into the beady black eyes of a platypus. 

“POSEIDON’S PRICK!” screamed Crozier and tossed the foul beast away. His mast no longer flew, as a matter of fact, it hadn’t even been furled up; a wicked storm had blown it away and sent all his rigging crashing to the deck. “TELL ME THIS ISN'T HAPPENING!” 

 

Maybe it was a trick of the scattered light falling through the leaves, but there seemed to be a mischievous glint in the thing’s eyes as if the platypus wanted to say, “Oh yes Francis, this  _ is _ happening,” and before he knew it the creature darted at him again with a startling speed. 

Crozier batted it away, then again, and again; all to no avail. It kept on coming, as persistent and infinitely worse than any stormy gale. The embattled captain set a new course and turned round but in doing so he exposed his aft to the persistent pond-dweller. He kicked his legs behind him and  pushed off the nearest branch but it was too late! The creature dodged his legs and leapt up onto his broad back. It’s breathing sounded frighteningly close to his ears. 

 

“BELAY THAT!” Crozier shouted and halted at the shadow’s edge, struggling to get the damned thing off of him. Amid the struggle and the desperation and most of all, the rage, Crozier somehow had the clarity to realize that the creature was not stinging him with it’s poisonous barb, which meant that his monotreme lover had to be a female. Crozier didn’t know whether to feel flattered or disgusted.     

 

_ At least lady platypuses like me. _

With almost superhuman effort, Crozier suddenly jumped against the pond’s bottom  and arched his back, sending the lady platypus flying off and crashing into the half-submerged undergrowth. 

 

At least something’s going right. Crozier allowed himself to sink into the water and tried to catch his breath. I was hidden back there, he reassured himself, even if someone were here-sitting on the far side and watching the pond-they would only have been able to hear the commotion and not see it.         

 

Crozier grinned to himself and now saw, in hindsight, that it really was rather funny. Something to laugh about with Blanky over a few drinks if they ever crossed paths again (but not with James Ross, never him. Crozier cared too much about how he looked in front of the handsome and dashing man). Yes, it really was a tad bit amusing. Thank goodness the females didn’t have stingers. He took a deep breath and made ready for his one-trip back to the shore, to sanity. 

 

Then he heard a loud chorus of bodies hitting the water behind him. 

 

Crozier sighed. “You’ve got to be fucking…”

 

The tide of randy platypuses hit him full force, thrusting him out into the daylight for all to see. “GET OFF ME!” Crozier bellowed in a voice he usually reserved for shouting at deckhands during hurricane force winds, “LEAVE MY PRESENCE YOU POX-RIDDEN, PISS DRINKING, FURRY DUCK BILLED BITCHES!”  Crozier accentuated each horrid oath using his thick arms to swipe the platypuses away, only succeeding in allowing more recently arrived animals to invade his personal space. They were an army of Immortals straight out from the books of Herodotus-when one went down, another instantly took its place. 

 

Crozier’s rage swelled inside of him and poured out his mouth in an angry stream of raw vitriol; his anger more intoxicating than the best whiskey. Maybe his tirade lasted seconds, maybe an hour; he lived in the moment and thought of nothing else. His Navy discipline-instilled at a tender age and strengthened over decades of service-dawned on him in an instant and he forced himself to think rationally. 

 

Land. He needed to reach land and hope against all hope these strange creatures were not so crazy about Crozier that they would follow him all the way back to Sir John’s house. The vile platypuses were packed too densely around him to attempt skillful maneuvering around their blockade, he’d have to run the gauntlet. Crozier braced himself before hurtling himself through the teeming, splashing crowd.  _ Their just ice _ , thought Crozier,  _ your breaking through the pack ice. _

 

The cursed creatures slid over and under him, a few brave ones attaching themselves to his flanks and humping away like horny barnacles.  _ It’s just ice scraping against the hull _ . Crozier forced himself through the onslaught,  _ just keep on swimming and think of Ireland _ . And swam he did, bravely through the torrent of teeming wet flesh and snapping bills; cutting through them like an ancient trireme’s prow cutting into the hull of an enemy ship. None could withstand Crozier’s determination, his raw will bringing him closer and closer to the shore. 

 

At last, he was able to stand up on the pond’s shallow end and run to shore in series of long, loping strides. “I HAVE NOT YET BEGUN TO FIGHT!” Crozier roared as he turned round to face his attackers. “COME HERE! I DARE YOU!” 

 

The pond was alive; what was once so still now teemed with life-the animals crashing and rolling all over each other in their excitement. One platypus-Crozier fancied that maybe it was the first one to accost him-seemed to be making eyes at him. Crozier shook his head, swore under his breath, and got his trousers on. “If only I had my pistols…” Crozier grumbled to himself. 

 

Abruptly and without warning, as if heeding an unheard symbol, the platypuses disappeared beneath the water. Returning to whatever infernal burrows they came from. “Good riddance,” Crozier growled. He finished getting his clothes on and sat down on the picnic blanket to yank his boots on. The pond looked still as a mirror now; no sign that anything ever happened. Crozier let out a sigh of relief, no one would ever know what had happened and, after a few glasses of whiskey, he could perhaps even convince himself that this was all just a dream he had while taking a nap. 

 

_ Yes, that’s what this was, a dream _ . 

 

Then he heard a woman laughing. 

 

He instantly knew who all the laughter belonged to. The memory of her laughter-her very voice-comforted him through those long, cool, antarctic nights where he sat alone in his cabin and listened to the moan of the hull and felt his very ship rolling with unseen waves; each sigh, a nearly imperceptible noise that occured when the ship descended from a crest, a sigh of hers. Even the day’s were not safe. The white flank of a mighty glacier-a side of her pale, powdered cheek; black holes in the ice-her dark eyes peeking out from the landscape and mocking him, tormenting him. No matter how far south he travelled, he always remained just within her veil, unable to tear it away and see beyond her shade. The ghost of her image had haunted him-continued to haunt him in the years to come, and he would keep seeing her where all was dark and all lay barren. And when he lay felled and shivering and moaning with a worn belt between his teeth he heard this-her unbridled joy at the Platypus Pond. 

 

“Sophia…” He found her behind the wall of shrubs where her clothes  _ had  _ been. He saw her fully clothed now, struggling to regain her composure. “Your…”

 

“Alright?” she giggled. “Of course, I am Francis.”

 

“But...you were gone.”

 

“True, but I will tell you where I was not,” she suppressed another series of giggles, “the Platypus Pond. Nowhere close, really.”

 

Crozier sputtered like a fish out of water. “Your...clothes…”

 

“Miscellaneous items carelessly thrown about,” she said carelessly. 

 

“I thought you were in trouble, I came...came to help…” Crozier still had no idea what had happened. His mind moved sluggishly. 

 

“And you did, I saw and heard everything,” she replied more calmly. 

 

“You did?”

 

Sophia sighed deeply and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Come now, Francis, your brighter than this. It was a trick! A mere joke. You know, like the ones you told me about.”

 

Crozier nodded slowly. He had told her of the tricks sailors played on the young, so called ‘pollywogs’, who were new to the sea. He talked freely with her of how when he first crossed the Equator as a boy he had to answer to King Neptune and his court-in reality a bunch of drunken, half-naked, older hands in ragged wigs made of old ropes-and ducked head first into the water. Then, of course, there was the ducking and shaving ceremony where he got ducked in the water again-this time time with a freshly shaven head, after he crossed the Tropic of Cancer for the first time. These were crazed rituals where naval regulations were relaxed and the shipboard hierarchy ignored, if only for a little while and anyway, it was all good for morale. 

 

_ And, _ Crozier thought ruefully,  _ there were no goddamn platypuses.  _

 

But a gentlewoman of good breeding like Sophia Cracroft playing a trick on him like this? He couldn’t believe it! She was not that kind of woman! Sophia Cracroft would surely never fool an officer of the Royal Navy into skinny dipping in a pond filled with horny animals. 

 

Would she?

 

“Sophia...I don’t understand…”

 

“What is there to to understand?” Sophia snapped, her good humor giving way to frustration. “We went out on this little jaunt to go on a fun filled adventure. We enjoyed ourselves-me more than you apparently-and now we must head back before Sir John thinks we’re up to something.” 

 

_ Keep calm, handle this cooly, _ he reassured himself. “I thought...we really were going to be up to something…” Crozier stammered. 

 

“What? Like, in the… Oh no, Francis!” she broke down laughing again. “You...me...in the pond? Oh no! Never in a million years! You sir, have spent too much time alone on that  _ Terror _ of yours.”

 

Crozier felt the blood rushing to his face.  _ Damn your eyes! Why did you say that? _ He had to salvage the situation by bringing up a greater matter, one of such importance that it would completely overshadow the events of this horrid afternoon. 

 

“Sophia...Ms. Cracroft…” Crozier awkwardly dropped to one knee, all too aware that his waistcoat was missing and most of his shirt buttons were loose, “When I thought you were gone I...assumed the worst had happened. I went into that pond to save you because I couldn’t imagine a world without you. Sophia, you deserve the hand of a prince but I promise to make you happy.” 

 

He looked up into her eyes but found them to be unreadable. In the moment that Crozier opened himself up and made himself truly vulnerable for once in his life, she drew away. 

 

At last she said, “I understand.”

 

“You do?” Crozier started to rise. “As you may have heard during the...trick...my language can be a little unrefined but I can change...for you…” 

 

“The wine and the heat have gotten to your head,” she continued on as if not hearing him, “my playful prank may have been a little too mean-spirited, I admit. My sincere apologies, Francis.”

 

“I’m really…”

 

“Would you be so kind as to help me pack these items? Good heavens, they might start worrying about us back at home.” 

 

“But,”

 

“Please button your trousers, Francis,” she said curtly and with that she was gone, if not in person than in spirit. 

 

\---

 

Francis Crozier did not want to stay in the Governor’s House anymore, nor Van Diemen’s land for that matter. 

 

Relations between him and Sophia were much cooler now. Oh, of course they were still friends but their interactions were now marked with a certain distance, mostly on Crozier’s part. He had realized that, after all, perhaps he was not so much in love with her as much as he was in love with his  _ image  _ of her. Crozier did not look to icons or cling to rosaries, but during his Antarctic travels he had revered the glowing memory of Cracroft. But this idolized version of Sophia he had placed upon an unreachable pedestal was so much different than the Sophia Cracroft that existed in the flesh and was as mischievous as any sailor he knew. Crozier knew, deep in his soul, that he had been humbled at that pond and he had learned valuable lesson about a woman he thought he knew.  

 

He would continue to woo Sophia but the same passion would not return no matter how much he willed it. He’d beg for her hand, if not out of desire, then obligation. Society didn’t expect a man of a certain age to be a bachelor.   

 

At least, he thought, they had seemingly reached an unspoken agreement that they would never mention her platypus related prank. 

 

On the night before their departure Sir John hosted a lavish dinner. A sombre one, for although no one said it aloud, it would perhaps be the last time Sir John entertained such esteemed guests as governor of Van Diemen’s Land. 

 

Crozier was too busy brooding and drinking to pay much attention to what was happening. Crozier did not enjoy talking about his feelings, mind you, he preferred to sit alone and brood and drink because that was what men did. Questions were posed to him and he gave mumbling answers.

 

It was towards the end of dinner that he was jerked out from his pleasant bout of self-pity.

 

“Are you still with us, Francis? I hope that I am not boring you too much,” Sir John said affably and smiled at him. 

 

“By no means, Sir John, I do admit that I am a little fatigued.”

 

“That does not surprise me,” Sir John replied while carrying that same damnably inane smile, “I’ve heard from Sophia that your quite the nature lover.” 

 

To the startlement of all the guests present at the table, Crozier’s face turned into a variety of hues as he tightly clenched his trembling wine glass. From white to red, red to purple, purple to a dull crimson until eventually his face settled on a deathly, chalky white. He ate grapefruit in despair for a few seconds in a vain effort to halt the upsurge of the melancholy that had haunted him his entire life. “Forgive me for I am unwell,” he uttered at last. He stood up too quickly, causing the feet of the chair to screech too loudly against he hard floor and attracting even more people’s attention. “Apolgies...er...sorry,” he sputtered and cut a hasty retreat to the dining room’s exist.  

 

“Now what was that about?” asked James Ross with concern for his friend. 

 

“I have no idea,” Sir John stared in astonishment at Crozier’s vacant seat, “I just wanted to talk about those unique breeds of gulls you saw around Antarctica.” 

 

Sophia snorted into a napkin.  


	3. Chapter 3

“Goddamn those fuckin’ beasts, I hate ‘em!… So, anyway...what did you think of my story?” grumbles Crozier. Over the course of his sordid tale he had pulled his blanket up to his chin-making him, in Jopson’s eyes, like a shame-filled child recalling a  particularly embarrassing tale.

 

Jopson opens and closes his mouth, trying and failing to force the words out. At last he can only say, “Sir...what in God’s name _?_ ”   

 

“Our Lord had nothing to do with it. I imagine he took all the parts that were leftover from creation and tossed them into a pot and...behold! A fucking platypus…” Crozier speaks much more clearly now and, oddly enough Jopson thinks, telling the tale seems to have made his captain feel much better.

 

“But... _why?_ ” Jopson asks. He is both disgusted and oddly...excited by his captain’s account. The image of his stern faced captain as a younger, more vulnerable man floundering naked out in the wild oddly...titillating.

 

“I dunno, Mr. Jopson...I thought that maybe...you’d like it,” Crozier’s voice is a low, gravelly grumble and he gives Jopson a lopsided grin.

 

Was that what this was? An elaborate plan of the captain to his steward in bed with him?  “I don’t know how I feel about it, sir.”

 

“Is that so, Mr. Jopson?” teases, his voice in a low and mischievous brogue.

 

“It-it is so…” Jopson tries and fails to hide the nervousness out of his voice. _But is that really how I feel?_ He sees that color is finally returning to Crozier’s face-his captain now looking slyly at him from under his blanket. _Is this really happening?_ “I’ve never...never heard something like this, sir.”

 

“Well, you might develop an opinion after a good night’s sleep.”

 

“Pardon me, sir?”

 

“You’ve been looking after me for God knows how long, you deserve a break.” As if to prove a point, Crozier successfully props himself up on his elbows. “See, I’m much better.”

 

Jopson emphatically shakes his head. “I’m not leaving this cabin until your able to present yourself on deck, sir.”

 

Crozier’s grin grows wider and his brogue is thicker than ever. “Who says your leaving the cabin? I’m getting gooseflesh in this freezing bed.”

 

His captain didn’t even need to ask. Jopson happily starts to slide into the bed but is stopped. “The fabric of your clothes,” his captain says sharply, “irritates my flesh. It’s still sensitive.”

 

That makes sense, but Jopson’s heart still thumps against his ribs. “Of course, sir.” It’s not an odd request, their sailors and Jopson reckons this wouldn’t be the first nor last time he’d end up in close proximity to a naked man. He sidles up to his captain and rolls over so they are resting arse to arse-he blows out the lamp and darkness hold them in it’s intimate embrace. _This alright, this is normal_.

 

Then his captain rolls over and he feels his warm breath against his neck. Jopson shuts his eyes and focuses on the beating of his heart. One beat, two beats, three beats, four beats… Wait, is that even his own heart? No… Now Jopson has to open his eyes; no, Crozier is against him, _his body against mine!_ Crozier is pressing himself against him. _This is fine, he’s only needs my body’s warmth_ . But he knows deep within his heart that he’d give his captain so much more, _If only to break through to him and show him-_

 

Something hard is pressing into the small of Jopson’s back and it is definitely not a boat knife.     

 

“Is-is that…” What the hell is he supposed to say?! “Your poisonous barb?”

 

“Say that again and I’ll bloody throw you out,” Crozier growls.  

 

“Sorry.” Without thinking and overcome with the mad desire to please his captain; Jopson reaches behind him and grabs a spoke on the ship’s wheel of the HMS _Francis Moira Rawdon Crozier_ . But while the ship’s namesake is the captain, Jopson is now the master-that is the chief warrant officer in charge of navigation-and now he finds himself plotting a new course: intercourse. _Damn you eyes, Thomas! What have you done!_

  

But his captain does not say anything, instead he Crozier starts working against his hand and grunts in his steward’s ear, “Beat to quarters, Thomas.”

 

_Thomas…_ The steward’s heart feels as if it is a proud, colorful flag being flown from a towering main mast. Never had he ever dreamed of this; so impossible it seemed but now the imaginable became reality and Jopson finds himself performing his own, special maneuvers. While polishing Crozier’s taffrail he also sure to juggle around his holystones.

 

“Your no bloody pollywog, Thomas,” Crozier breathes into his ear. “But allow me to be captain of the foretop.” The sensation of Crozier’s callused fingers is like St. Elmo’s fire dancing around his rigging in a passionate dance of desire. Crozier is an old hand who spent many years before the mast and it shows as the older man skillfully swings among his topsail lines, never slipping and falling in spite this gale of girth.

 

Jopson is not the kind to go swinging lead and rises to the occasion, skillfully steering his hips back and brushing sides with his partner’s mighty anchor. Now the struggle begins. Spreading his sails, he feels Crozier heave to between his spread sails that are as white as the china he used to serve to the officers in better days in the Great Cabin. Now he has him right where he wants him. Jopson closes up and feels the sweet resistance between his shuttered thighs and it is with an effort that he keeps his gun ports clamped tight, all for his captain’s benefit.

 

Never before has he felt such intimacy, such an experience makes him feel like he is not serving but dining with the officers in the wardroom-which makes sense because as a ship’s master for this lewd voyage he is of wardroom rank-and he desperately strains against Crozier’s body like a sweaty sailor straining at the capstan. At times it is too much and he groans in frustration but Crozier-who is a sensual bosun’s mate playing on the pipe that is Jopson’s trembling body, his back arching with every twittering note-keeps him working at the capstan with sharp strikes from his captain’s rattan cane.

 

Jopson hisses and sighs sound like water crashing over the hull and sliding across the deck. Lieutenant Irving, he is vaguely aware, is just a thin wall away in the next cabin but in this fog of pleasure he cannot find the effort to care. He can only dimly hope that he is above deck acting as Officer of the Watch. Another downward motion and all his worried fall overboard while he his swung aloft, riding waves of ecstasy. Not long now. This voyage is almost over and for once Jopson is not happy about arriving in port but, with a jolt of pleasure, he realizes that if he does not make a happy return this maelstrom will tear him apart! He feels a mighty wave swelling amidships and he know it must end soon.

 

Jopson moors his vessel.

 

“Shiver my fucking timbers!” Jopson shouts and the _Terror’s_ ice strangled hall seems to shriek in agreement.

 

The sound of his steward, usually so prim and polite, using profanity seems to push Crozier over the edge. Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier lets out a throaty roar and delivers a full broadside that leaves them both panting and-the sensation is so strange they can’t even name it right away-warm. They bask in this almost holy glow together, unheeding of the anguished whining coming from the next cabin. They are together now, what once began as caretaking slowly, but naturally, turned into something more. Crozier soundlessly embraces him and the steward knows that the melancholy shell is starting to break.

 

An urge comes, strong and unbidden. Only three words that might mean nothing... or everything. Before, to say such a thing would be unspeakable, but now, after this intimate moment, he’d be a cowardly fool not to ask.

 

“Sir?”

 

“Grrm…” Crozier grunts into his steward’s glossy, black hair.

 

_What if he rejects me?_ Jopson nearly doesn’t say anything, why should he? First and foremost, he is a steward and to say, no, reveal such at thing would ruin their professional relationship. Three damned words. But if the expedition fails? If the beast carries him off the next watch? And Crozier doesn’t know? That was a much more terrifying possibility than death.

 

He settled on a compromise. “Move over…” _Sir!_ “Francis.”

 

Jopson expects to be bent over and punished as a boy right then and there but instead he feels Crozier’s body concede a few inches too him on the too small bed. Jopson sighs in relief. So this will be their relationship, a subtle one expressed in small but meaningful gestures whose significance could only be understood by each other. Far from ideal, but then again, this whole situation is far from ideal.

 

The ice continues its everpresent screeching, feet continue stamping above their heads, and heavy footfalls stamp down to the great cabin. Somewhere, maybe from the sick bay, comes a series of ragged coughs. He also feels vibrations under him and he knows work parties are chipping away the dirty ice coalescing in the lower decks. Amidst it all, a flicker of warmth stands out that will only grow stronger once his captain appears on deck again in full dress uniform.

 

If only it was hot enough to thaw the ice, Jopson thinks before succumbing to a dreamless sleep.                

    

**Author's Note:**

> For Dan Simmons. 
> 
> This was originally meant to be short but I tend to be wordy. 
> 
> If you think The Terror is outrageous, you should read Hyperion. Now that has a memorable scene that I can’t really put into words. All I can say is that a man needs to be careful lest he loses his bowsprit. John Keats is there. 
> 
> Speaking of nautical terms, I find historical accuracy to be very important. If I have to criticize one thing about this fic it would have to concern my placing Lieutenant Irving’s cabin next to Captain Crozier’s cabin. In actuality, or at least I presume, First Lieutenant Edward Little would have been berthed next to the Terror’s captain by virtue of his seniority. When it comes to writing historical fiction one is forced to reconcile the need to be accurate with the demands of drama. This can result in crazy things such as cabin relocation which may fairly be judged to be in bad taste. I am truly sorry for any distress this caused. 
> 
> I am also sorry for any platypus related trauma. Don’t swim with them, they are wild animals.  
> .  
> Also, if there are any AMC execs reading this please feel free to contact me. 
> 
> Another chapter of the supernatural modern au will be up soon.


End file.
